Monday, March 11, 2019

You Have Five Senses – Use Them!


When you’re asked to describe something, what is your automatic first response? For most of us, we start talking about how it looks. We focus on light, color, texture.

Many authors are the same way. Their books are full of wonderful visual descriptions of people and places. You can almost see yourself in the picture.

But can you hear the picture? Smell it? We have five senses, and as a writer it’s up to you to use them.

Hearing

Close your eyes for a minute and listen to the world around you. Eyes open again? Good. Okay, so what did you hear?

I hear the quiet whir of my computer’s fan, muffled voices coming through the wall, a distant rumble as the furnace turns on.

What does that tell you about my setting?

Obviously, I’m not at Starbucks. I’m not out dancing, or hanging out with friends, or running for my life from a horde of zombies.

Force your characters to close their eyes and listen. Start with the loud, obvious sounds. A plane flying overhead (or a dragon). A jackhammer. Car horns. Swords crashing against shields.

Not only will your readers learn more about your setting, but your characters will, too. The quiet scuff of a foot on the carpet might be the only thing that saves them from the serial killer sneaking up on them.

Having them hear their completely non-romantic best friend whisper “I love you” can change the entire tone of your book. Be sure to listen for it.

Touch

Very often, we can guess what something feels like just by looking at it, and from past experience. A cat’s fur is usually soft and warm, fire is hot, sandpaper is coarse. We don’t need to touch them to know that.

But there are many things that are less obvious. Run your fingers along the wall-is it smooth, textured, rough, warm, cool, damp, slimy?

Is the ground under your feet hard-packed dirt or soft loam? Is the concrete rough or smooth? Does the sandy beach scorch your bare feet, or push coldly up between your toes?

Touch can be an especially strong tool when it’s unexpected. Elegant looking clothes that turn out stiff and scratchy. A metal doorknob that is burning hot because of a fire on the far side, or icy cold because of a ghost.

Smell

We often ignore our sense of smell because we don’t consider it that important. Just as often, we wish we could ignore it because something really stinks. But as a writer, you need to pay attention, especially when you want to feed your characters vital clues.

The faint whiff of gasoline warns of impending arson. The odor of decay promises that the missing camper is nearby, and not as healthy as you had hoped. The alluring scent of perfume rising from the envelope tells you this isn’t hate mail, but far from it.

Smell is also an incredibly strong provoker of memories. The right smell can send you years into your past, to the heavenly aroma of your grandmother’s kitchen whenever she baked cinnamon rolls, or to the sharp antiseptic bite of the hospital room where you held her hand as she slipped away.

Taste

Taste can be one of the hardest senses to use when building descriptions. Let’s face it, other than when we eat, we don’t rely on our sense of taste much at all. But it shouldn’t be overlooked, either.

When your characters kiss, do they taste salty sweat, cherry lip balm, steel braces, sour unbrushed teeth? A bloody lip may taste salty and metallic. You may taste the ozone from an electrical discharge more than you smell it.

And by all means, when your characters are eating, describe how it tastes, especially if it is new, different, delicious, horrible, anything but normal.

Sight

Naturally, vision is very important, and we should never lose sight of it (pun fully intended). But be sure to look past the surface. Search for those tiny details that take your readers beyond the normal, everyday world and immerse them fully in your creation.

While you could fill a book with descriptions that are purely visual, it will be incomplete. Force your readers to experience your writing with all five of their senses, and you’ll keep them coming back for more.

C. Wombat


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